Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has aspirations for regional and global leadership. Standing in Lula’s way is the fact that he cannot even get a meeting with his counterpart from neighboring Argentina, President Javier Milei.
Seven months after Milei’s inauguration, the two leaders have met only once and even then briefly, on the sidelines of the G7 meeting last month in Italy. Otherwise, they have unartfully dodged each other as they have darted around the region and the world promoting their opposing ideological views.
Lula’s global agenda is expansive. He wants Brazil to have a permanent United Nations Security Council seat. He plans for the country to take a leading role in climate change negotiations as he hosts the U.N. COP30 Climate Change Conference in Brazil next year. He has tried to insert himself as a mediator in the Ukraine conflict. And when BRICS—the political grouping that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—moved to expand last year, Lula made sure to bring along Argentina under then-President Alberto Fernandez as one of its new members.